The Friday Five: Spring Colors

Friend Friday! It's so lovely to see you again. The 90s pop radio station is playing on Pandora, sun is streaming through the windows (okay, clearly I started writing this earlier than I'm posting it), and I'm thinking about what's been saving my life this week...

1. More parental help with the yard, more repayment with food. My dear in-laws came over on Saturday morning for a homemade waffle breakfast (which, I am proud to tell you, I had nothing to do with) in exchange for some weeding and helping us get our raised bed (featuring tomato and cucumber seeds) in place. It was a gorgeous morning to work together outside!

Our landlords put in this bounty of blossoms that we get every year. Love!

2. Girl Scout cookies + The West Wing. My husband is in the midst of baseball season - working and playing - and so it means I get some weekend afternoons to myself. And what have I been doing? Popping Thin Mints and digging into the stories of Jed Bartlet's administration for the first time ever. I know, my late timing is pretty pathetic. But at the same time, I've savoring the "simplicity" of Sorkinese government when everything in real life politics is bordering on insane these days. Escapism at its finest.

3. Celebrating Pop-Pop's memory. It meant a lot to gather at my grandfather's grave on what would have been his 89th birthday with my parents, grandmother, one aunt and one uncle, and laugh and tell stories as the sun went down.

4. Writing group. You'll have to read this to know what happened, but let's just say I've been meditating on it a lot and the experience feels life-saving (and convicting) all at the same time.

5. The Colorful Choices Challenge! Our office just started a contest to see who can eat the most helpings of fruits and vegetables for the next few weeks, and it's - dare I say it? - fun! Mostly because there's an app that helps you track your helpings, so it feels like a bonus incentive to see your number of points go up in a day. Hey, it's the little things! And if they happen to be healthy, all the better.

Honorable mentions: a mindful meal at work, new books (Wendell Berry, Helen Simonsen, Ruth Reichl), a new journal from Jessie, breakfast with Mom at The General Muir, making plans to see a good friend when she's in town next month, National Walking Day, social media-less Sunday, exercising everyday, a turkey sighting at work today (see Instagram), the Pope's relationship advice, and finishing up plans for my new logo - coming soon! (Thanks, Grace!)

I'd love to hear your story, friends - what's been saving your life lately?

Say a prayer for him.

At the end of my writing group on Sunday night, a gentleman walked into the room.

We were the only people left in the building, it was getting late, and I admit that my heart doubled up for a moment when I saw an unfamiliar face appear at the door. "Is there a service going on?" he asked. No, we told him; unfortunately, the last service had finished a couple of hours ago. But he didn't go away. He came inside. He sat in a chair.

He told us his story, and that he needed help.

I'm going to be honest: when people tell me they need help like this - money, a working phone, a place to stay for the night - my body tenses up. My mind doesn't know what to do. I jump through too many mental hoops, hoops that I'm sure the person wouldn't appreciate, that I know I wouldn't appreciate in their place. Is their story true? What will they do with the money? Is that even my business? What would Jesus do? Probably invite them to sleep in our guest bedroom. Am I going to do that? No. Is that because I'm a woman and have been conditioned to feel afraid? Because I'm too proud, too comfortable in my own life, too... not like Jesus?

No matter what, I know that I'm basically not going to be like Jesus in this situation. And I don't care for that about myself and yet at the same time, I feel it protects me. And yet Jesus didn't mean for us to be protected. (See what I mean about the mental hoops?)

It was quickly clear that the gentleman didn't mean any harm. But even still, my heart pounded in the midst of the surprise and of not knowing what to do.

I was so deeply strengthened by my fellow church members and writers. Not one of the four of them moved a muscle. They could have said, "Well, I have an early morning tomorrow, gotta go!" But they stayed in their seats. Not only that, they acted much more quickly than I did, pulling out their phones, asking him more about his situation, calling numbers and Googling local services, trying to figure out the best way to help on an empty Sunday night.

And I kept thinking: What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?

Smile at him.

He smiled back.

"What's your name?" I asked. He told us.

"What was your wife's name?" He'd said at the start that she'd passed away last fall.

Talk to him. Maybe parts of his story are blurry. So what? Treat him like the human being that he is. May he feel some sense of calm sitting in this room, even as his immediate future is so uncertain.

"Is that your church across the way, too?" he asked, pointing towards the sanctuary.

"Yep," I said, nodding. "That's where we hold worship in the morning. We hope you'll come sometime, if you can."

My friends and I continued to talk with him, trying to feel out what the best answer for a Sunday night would be. It was nearly an hour until we reached someone who could help more than we could (but, this little voice in my head asks, is that really true?). But as the gentleman prepared to leave, I knew there was one more thing that we could do.

"Can we say a prayer for you?" I asked, standing and moving closer to him. My eyes welled up even as I asked the question, even as he nodded vigorously. The honor of asking that question. "I'm just going to put my hand on your shoulder," I said, and did so. His shoulder was warm underneath his button-down shirt. Human. And so we all bowed our heads and I stuttered through a prayer - be with him on his journey, watch over him and guide him to whatever the next step might be, may he feel your presence and the presence of his beloved wife...

In my words, and the action of them leaving my mouth and touching the air, reaching his ears - I sensed the presence of the many who have lit the path for me. The many who have encouraged me to minister, before and even when I decided not to become an actual minister. Those who show me that I am still called to ministering in these small and simple and messy ways - and my belief that sometimes, this small and simply and messy ministering by us, as lay people, is the most powerful.

I know I got some things wrong in that unexpected hour. I stiffened and stumbled and didn't say, "Hey, let's go down to the village and I'll buy you some dinner and we can figure out what to do next." 

But as we said "Amen," that moment felt like the only thing I could be sure I'd gotten right in life that day.

"Unbridled Mirth": A Remembrance

Yesterday, my grandfather would have turned 89. We celebrated by going to church and, later, spending sunset in the bowl of grass by his gravestone. I thought I'd continue the celebration a bit longer by posting a brief excerpt from my (still-to-be-fully-revised) memoir manuscript, in honor of Frank Logan Asbury III. 

June 30, 2012

My Dearest Claire,

I enjoyed with “unbridled mirth” the Father’s Day card and “poem” which you sent me on 6/29/12 – particularly the “fishy” nature of the “take me to the river” language!! – As hot as it has been here the past week I would be simply delighted to have you or others “take me to the river and drop me in the water”!! You are becoming completely skilled in your poem composing!!

Mason is off to New Orleans for a few days to do a little “courting.” We miss you here, my darling girl! Encl. is some monetary support!!

I love you – as do we all!

Pop-Pop

Ever since I could remember, five humongous fish had been mounted to the wood paneled basement walls on plaques. Their scales, fins and bugged-out eyes had been frozen by glaze, and a child – which I was then – could easily fit a fist into their open mouths. In this immobile state, they appeared much more alarming than I imagined they had been underwater. Pop-Pop loved to go on fishing trips with his Emory buddies, and these mounted fish were his trophies, and his company as he watched the game, snapping at the players as if he were a sideline coach. In his study upstairs, one photo showed him in his mid-fifties, wearing a slicker and knee-high waders and looking supremely pleased as he hoisted two fish as long and thick as his own arms.

In homage to his fishing prowess, someone (most likely one of his sons, who had inherited his sense of humor) presented him with a Big Mouth Billy Bass for my grandparents’ golden wedding anniversary. Billy Bass was a rubber fish mounted on a plastic plaque made to look like polished wood. When one of his young grandchildren eagerly pressed the button, Billy Bass twisted the front part of his fish-body and serenaded us with the songs “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “Take Me to the River.”

Whenever a family birthday came, he would retreat to his study to compose a poem at his large wooden desk. Since four of their five children lived nearby, birthday gatherings were normal, on the back deck in spring, in the dining room in winter. After my music teacher aunt pitched “Happy Birthday,” Nana sliced the grocery store cake and silence would fall as he recited his original composition in honor of the lucky recipient – sometimes a limerick, sometimes a Shakespearean iambic, sometimes free verse.

For decades, he cheerily held court among his large and growing family, among the dogwoods and azaleas, beneath the high ceilings and grandfather clock’s deep clang, in the white brick three-story house they’d called home for more than fifty years.